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Building a Geodesic Dome Reading Fort

Junior makers build geodesic dome structures:

What’s more fun than making a snow fort in your back yard? How about making a geodesic dome reading fort in your school library!

We had a huge dump of snow this week and the kids were having great fun making snow forts on the playground. This made me think about the cool project I found in ‘Make: Paper Inventions’ and I thought: ‘Why not build a fort in the library?’

This geodesic dome was constructed almost entirely by the grade 2 and grade 3 students visiting my library. Students built the struts out of tightly rolled recycled newspaper. They then worked in teams to assemble the triangles and piece them all together.

Big payoff for little cost:

One of the big payoffs of doing this project was the ‘WOW!’ factor that it brought to the students’ library visits. The kids were so excited to be a part of the building process. They’d keep poking their heads in throughout the day to see how the structure was progressing!

The other big payoff was the teamwork and resilience that my students needed to Develop. A makerspace provides a great environment for kids to learn to take risks without a fear of failure.

A safe place to take risks:

Too often in the classroom, students are afraid to try something new for fear that they might ‘get it wrong’. But a makerspace is such a safe place to explore that students are often shocked to discover what they are capable of achieving.

Having a makerspace really helps build on the mantra that ‘every student can be successful in the library.’ We wound up with an awesome learning experience that culminated in an impressive structure. We also had one of the more memorable story times that we’ve had in a while!

My biggest challenge with this project had to be getting the roof on. I had to balance it on my head like a hat while the edges were secured with tape! Thankfully I was the only person with a camera…

Now I’ve just got to figure out what to do with all of the library furniture that’s been pushed to the side!

The ends are fastened with masking tape. Can’t speak to the carbon neutral question, other than the fact that the papers for this project came out of the recycling, and when we were done they went back into the recycling. 😉
I hope you’ll give it a try and let me know how it goes. My kids had a blast making this!